All the Right Reasons
by Caramia Winterbourne
Summary: Harry gets more family than he ever hoped for when the adults in his life get their acts together and stop being selfish beasts. A 2nd Year Severitus that's AU but uses many canon events. No horcruxes; I'm sick to death of them. Mild slash RL/SB.
1. Chapter 1

"Professor Lupin!"

Remus spun around, his eyes widening as a blur of black and red nearly knocked him off his feet. "Harry! I didn't know you were here."

Harry was completely out of breath and just grinned from ear to ear. He was wearing a blindingly bright jumper with the letter 'H' embroidered on the front, and his face was nearly as red. His hair, even more than usual, stood up every which way.

Remus smiled. "You must be glad to be here, and not with your relatives."

"Oh, yes," Harry said. He sucked in another gulp of air. "But I'm staying with Snape, you know."

"Oh?" Remus tried to keep his smile from faltering. "Really?"

Harry, to his surprise, just shrugged, obviously trying to look nonchalant. "It's all right, I guess. Better than the Dursleys."

"Good... that's good, Harry." But he noticed Harry looking over his shoulder toward the stairwell to the dungeons, biting his lower lip. "Is something the matter?"

"I saw you coming up the road and I ran down as fast as I could. Snape wants to see you right away, and your train was very late."

Remus frowned slightly. It had been a long train ride, and he had been looking forward to unpacking his suitcase, settling down by a warm fire, and unwinding with a hot cup of tea and a good book.

"I can take your things up to your office," Harry said. He pulled on the handle of Remus's suitcase with both hands, managing to lift it a few inches. "What's in this?"

"Rocks," Remus said with a smile as Harry gave up and lowered the suitcase back down to the floor. "It's much too heavy for you. Just leave it here. I'm sure I won't be too long."

"All right," Harry said, looking reluctant. The boy was ridiculously eager to please. As much as Remus liked the unwavering attention from one of the very few young people who had ever looked at him without fear, he thought there was something unhealthy about it.

"We'll catch up tomorrow. Good night, in case I don't see you before curfew."

"Good night, Professor."

Remus turned away, though he was aware that Harry was still standing rather forlornly in the middle of the corridor next to the suitcase.

The stairwell leading down to the dungeons loomed in front of him like the entrance to a dark cave. He tried to force down the dread and anxiety that always rose up in his chest when he had to speak to someone he knew didn't like him.

He supposed this was just the beginning, and he'd best get used to it. If Albus didn't change his mind and if Remus himself didn't wimp out at the last minute, like he very much wanted to do already, even though it was only a month into summer, then he would be spending a whole year teaching alongside Severus.

He passed Severus's office. The lights were off and the door closed, so there was no point in stopping. With a small sigh, he continued on, his steps dragging now that he knew he would have to enter Severus's private rooms. It seemed to suggest that he had not been quite correct in telling Harry this unplanned side trip would not take long.

He was in front of Severus's door long before he felt ready, but he knocked resolutely, plastering what he hoped was a pleasant expression on his face.

Almost immediately he heard the scrape of a chain being lifted, and then the door opened a crack. "You're late."

Remus assumed he was being blamed for the train making unscheduled stops, and said nothing.

Severus held the door open wider. "Come in."

"Thank you."

"Sit."

Remus looked around for a chair, since Severus had turned his back to him and had not pointed one out. For lack of other options, he sat down on a hard bench in front of a long table that seemed to serve as both a writing desk and potions lab. He eyed the large cauldron that simmered over a low flame. The smell coming from it was familiar.

"Wolfsbane," Severus said, confirming his suspicions. His black eyes swept over Remus, slightly narrowed. "I assume you took the last dose I sent?"

"Of course."

Severus picked up a long-handled ladle and stirred the potion in slow circles. Remus dared not interrupt, though it was not pleasant in the least to sit in silence when he knew he had been summoned for a reason that had to be more important than reminding him that he was a dangerous beast in a school full of innocent children.

Severus put the ladle down, but he still did not speak.

"Er..." Remus began cautiously. "Harry told me he's staying with you."

"Did he?" Severus's expression was unfathomable. "That is true."

"May I ask why? I thought he was to spend the summer with Molly and Arthur."

"There was an incident."

Remus frowned. It was true he had been both busy and unwell since the end of the previous school year, but he counted the Weasleys among his few friends, and thought he would know had something happened at the Burrow. "What sort of incident?"

"The sort we didn't want plastered on the front page of _The Prophet_."

"I see... Was anyone hurt?"

"No." Without taking his piercing eyes off Remus, Severus reached for something lying on top of a stack of books. Remus thought it was a piece of parchment until Severus slid it across the table to him. "The boy saw this."

Remus's mouth went dry. He could only stare at the photograph, too afraid to raise his eyes to meet Severus's.

"It seems he could find no one to believe him. He borrowed a camera and mailed a picture to Albus, along with a rather incoherent missive. The Headmaster is still away, of course."

Remus swallowed.

"Look familiar?"

"Yes."

"Yes, I thought it might be."

He was caught in his deception. That was it, then. Severus had uncovered it, and of course he would use it now that he had.

"It would have been good to know, Lupin, what we were dealing with."

"I know." His voice, again, came out only just above a whisper. "I should have told Albus at once. I should have informed the Ministry. I --"

"Yes, you should have," Severus said, his tone silencing Remus with his first word. "You allowed the boy to leave Hogwarts for the countryside, and you did it knowing that those charged with protecting him would never see the danger coming. Unconscionable, Lupin. I find it repulsive that you could do it after befriending him as you did."

Remus said nothing. There was nothing to say to the accusations, because Severus was absolutely right.

He could feel Severus's eyes on him, burning like a curse. "It is only too fortunate the Ministry erred on the side of sanity."

Remus drew in a breath, his lungs aching for air. "I know what I am, Severus. I wouldn't have accepted guardianship. That was all Albus."

"Yes. Albus and his good intentions." Severus's lip curled derisively. "You did befriend the boy, nonetheless. Heartless of you, knowing how he'd grown up. I suppose you intended to carry on this coming year, too."

"I only meant to be a link to the past." Remus winced, hearing the pleading tone in his own voice. "He was starved for information about his parents. I never intended for him to become so attached."

"And I suppose you filled his head with nonsense about James Potter?"

Remus shrugged weakly, tired of trying to defend himself when it was so useless. In truth, he had avoided the subject of James, and maybe even Lily, too, as much as he had been able. Maybe that was why Harry had latched on to him so. Remus had filled too much of their time together with himself, when he had meant to fill it with good memories of everything Harry had missed out on knowing first hand.

"Of course you did," Severus continued, not pausing to see if he would answer. "In spite of what you know."

This time Remus did look up, frowning. "Hold on, Severus. I did ask you, and you told me very plainly you didn't want him. Didn't want anyone to know, even. If I told Harry anything about James, it was only right that I did, since you made the choice to let him continue to know James as his father."

Severus's expression twisted angrily, but instead of retorting as Remus expected, he leaned back against the table and folded his arms over his chest.

"You don't understand, Lupin. Never did I think Albus would try to give the boy to you. The Weasleys are a good family. Their children are decent. Even the twins. He would have done well with them, and... Lily would have approved."

"Then... I don't understand. Why did you take him from them? Why not let him grow up with them, if you think they're good enough? He would have been happy. Molly already thinks of him as another son."

"I only took him because it wasn't safe for him to stay, Lupin. I didn't tell them. If it were that simple...."

Remus searched his face. It was a useless exercise, with Severus. His expression was blank in spite of the emotion Remus thought he heard. "What happened at the Burrow, Severus?" His voice came out strangled. "I need to know."

It seemed to take a few moments for Severus to pull himself together. A glint came into his eyes that Remus didn't think meant anything good.

"I returned after bringing the boy here. I cast about for an Animagus. Didn't expect Black to be close enough to detect, but the boy had claimed multiple sightings and you never know what the insane might do. One would have to be insane to try to reach the boy at Hogwarts, and we both know what Black was heard muttering."

"_He's at Hogwarts_," Remus whispered. It was really too terrible to say out loud. Too terrible to know what his former friend was capable of.

"Yes, but of course by the time he had escaped the school was closed for the summer." He studied Remus with narrowed eyes. "Funny thing, isn't it, Lupin? He waited nearly ten years to escape, when I suppose he could have done it any time, since you didn't bother to share certain information."

Remus looked away, unable to withstand that penetrating stare.

"You recall what they claim prompted him to do it?"

"Of course I do." As if he could forget. "That idiot...."

Severus snorted. "Not too bright, our Minister. Personally, I wouldn't have handed a convicted murderer a picture of the child of his victims."

Remus shuddered. It was too terrible. Too terrible to know what looking at Harry's happy, innocent face had prompted Sirius to do.

"Did you ever look at the picture, Lupin?"

Remus drew a shaky breath. "Of course I did."

"Did you?"

"Find someone who didn't look at it, Severus. Three eleven year old children triumphed over Voldemort. Who didn't look?" Even as he spoke he saw that Severus had taken a page of _The Prophet_ from an inner pocket of his robes. He waved him off. "I don't need to see it again."

But Severus did not put it away. He was frowning slightly, his brows knit and his lips thin and white. "Your actions last year and even now make me wonder what else you're concealing."

Remus wanted desperately to be able to say that he was concealing nothing else, or at least nothing worse, but once again Severus had trapped him, somehow guessing, somehow knowing....

Without another word, Severus handed him the picture.

Remus forced himself to look at it, though he hardly needed to. He had carefully cut the same picture out and framed it, and even now it was in his suitcase, waiting to be hung in his office. It was the only picture he had of Harry that didn't also show Lily or James. Or Sirius. He could stand to look at it, because of that, and it was a good picture, besides, with Harry and Ron and Hermione happy and laughing over tall glasses of iced pumpkin juice at the end-of-year feast.

"I don't understand."

"Look at me."

He did, and was caught in the fathomless black eyes that looked into his own and straight through into his very thoughts. Even knowing what was being done to him, he didn't dare to break away.

"Tell me what you see in that picture."

The words spilled out of him as though from far, far away. "Harry and his friends at the feast. That's all. I don't know what you want me to say."

It was Severus who broke eye-contact, freeing him. Remus dropped his head into his hands, his vision blurred by pain. It seemed like eternity before he felt well enough to look up again.

"Before I tell you what happened at the Burrow...."

Remus swallowed involuntarily. He was trying to steel himself for what he knew was coming, but was finding it harder than he wanted to admit. Yet he didn't want to accept that after everything, he still might hurt upon learning Sirius's fate.

"Before I tell you, Lupin, I want your word. No hysterics. No unpleasant scenes."

Remus swallowed again, trying to make room in his throat for desperately needed breath. He nodded. No hysterics. He would hold himself together until he got to his own room, somehow, and then he would fall apart in private. Not here. Not in front of Severus.

"And give me your wand."

His hand shook badly. Their fingers brushed as the wand was taken from him, and Severus's were ice cold. When he drew back his hand and lowered it to his lap, he found the picture was still there, now slightly crumpled.

"You should be looking at Weasley, if that helps."

He looked at Ron. The boy had his arm thrown around Harry and his glass held high in a toast, his head thrown back. Laughing. Happy.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly, exhaustion almost overwhelming him. "I don't see... I don't know what you want from me. Tell me what happened at the Burrow, Severus. Please."

Severus reached for something that was underneath the table. He brought it out, a large earthen flask with a tall, narrow neck and voluminous bottom. He set it on the table between them.

Remus let out a shaky breath. He was tired. Tired. "What is it?"

"Just what I found at the Burrow, Lupin, in a bed not three feet away from where the boy slept for weeks."

Severus still held Remus's wand, and it was that wand he used to tap on the side of the flask, turning its sides to glass.

The same spell seemed to have turned Remus's body to stone. Only his eyes moved from the flask to the picture he still held, and back again, and back again, and back again, and then again to the picture where on Ron's shoulder sat the rat he never gave a moment's thought to.

"Tell me," he whispered, because his voice, too, seemed to have been turned to stone. "What happened to Sirius?"

Severus snorted derisively. "Cornered him for his own good. Not that I expect any gratitude. You can have both, Lupin. I only want one thing in return."

Remus tore his burning eyes away from the rat and looked up at him. "Anything."

Severus stepped back, away from the table, folding his arms across his chest defensively.

Finally, he spoke.

"You know what I am. You know what the Ministry is like, and you know what it's like to stand against Albus and his good intentions." He paused, scowling. "I don't expect you to understand, but I find myself forced to conclude that you are the only person I know who might. I only took the boy from the Burrow because I thought it was not safe, but now that I have him, I mean to keep him."


	2. Chapter 2

Remus had found what he needed and was about to leave his office when Harry bounded through the door he had thoughtlessly left open.

"Oh!" Harry stopped short. "Rocks! I'd thought you were joking."

"Good morning, Harry." Well aware that he sounded less than welcoming, he tried to change his tone. "Are you on your way to breakfast?"

"No, I just finished."

Remus rubbed his eyes tiredly. He had told Harry they would catch up. Now just wasn't the time.

"Oh... um... Professor... this broke. Sorry...."

He looked up and saw that Harry had picked up one of the rocks from his desk, and was looking at him guiltily. It had cracked down the center. He tried to pull a smile onto his face. "No, it isn't broken. Look inside."

Harry let the two halves fall open in his hands. His eyes lit up. "That's brilliant! It looks like any old rock on the outside!"

Remus rubbed his eyes again, and he couldn't help the heavy sigh that escaped. "Appearances can be deceiving."

"Professor, are you all right?"

"No, Harry, I slept badly and I'm not feeling well this morning." In truth, he hadn't slept at all. "I'm sorry, but I wouldn't be very good company right now."

Harry nodded, looking like he was trying to hide his disappointment, but not quite succeeding. He set the two rock halves down on the desk. "I hope you feel better soon."

"I'm sure I will. I --"

But he didn't finish, because at that moment a shadow fell across the doorway and Harry leaped to his side, grabbing his arm. "It's here! That's the Grim I've been seeing all summer!"

Remus looked helplessly at the black dog and then back at Harry, whose wide eyes were as large as saucers behind his round glasses. "No, Harry, that's... that's just Padfoot. He's mine, and I thought I locked him in my room."

"No, I'm sure that's what I saw." Harry couldn't take his eyes off the dog. His nails were digging painfully into Remus's flesh. "I'm _sure_."

There seemed to be no way for the situation to get any worse, but, as often happened, it was just as Remus thought this that the situation took a decisively ugly turn.

Harry let go of his him as if burned, stumbling away until his back hit the wall. "Black." His face paled, making his eyes look that much brighter and larger. He tore his eyes away from the doorway for the first time, and looked up at Remus, his lips thin with tension. "Yours? I guess so. Your friend from school." His voice, though low, was oddly steady. "Snape was right about you."

Remus felt like screaming. He didn't even have time to protest, as Harry turned away from him. His emerald eyes, with the pupils so dilated, now looked entirely black.

"Going to kill me like you killed my parents?"

"I didn't kill your parents," Sirius said flatly. Remus had the sudden urge to strangle him. Or at least shake him quite hard.

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Really? And all those Muggles? I suppose you're going to tell me you didn't kill them, either?"

Remus tried to edge closer to Sirius, but at his first movement Harry's intense gaze turned on him, and he froze.

Sirius shook his head.

"No, you didn't kill them? Or, no, you're not going to even bother denying it?"

"He didn't kill them, Harry," Remus cut in. "He didn't betray your parents. We only --"

"You stalked me all summer." Harry seemed not to have heard Remus at all.

Again, Remus took a step toward Sirius, and again Harry turned to look at him. "Go ahead," he said scathingly. "Go to him."

"Harry," Remus said, trying to put all the conviction he had in him into his voice. "Sirius isn't going to hurt you. I would die before I let anyone do that. I'm going to take him back to my room. I hope you will let me explain later." With his last words he finally reached Sirius's side, seizing him by the upper arm.

His attempt to shove Sirius out the door was met with resistance, however.

"You'll let him leave without explaining?"

"Yes, I will. He isn't going to hear anything we say when he's cornered in my office and it's two against one. How could you be so thoughtless?"

He succeeded, at last, in getting Sirius into the corridor, and in that moment Harry shot through the doorway like an arrow.

"How could you?" Remus repeated, glaring at Sirius, who was staring dully at the corner where Harry had disappeared.

Sirius shrugged half-heartedly. "How was I to know he'd recognize me? I just wanted to get a look at him."

For a few moments Remus didn't reply, but looked at Sirius with a frown. He thought there might be something like the beginning of remorse in Sirius's grey eyes, but it was not enough. "But you transformed. Why did you do that? Why didn't you just go? Didn't you see how terrified he was?"

"Reckoned it was too late, then."

"Or reckoned it didn't matter, since he isn't James's. Is that it, Sirius?"

"He's still Lily's."

Parroting Remus's own words did nothing to make Remus less angry. "She was never your friend."

Sirius shrugged.

"But she was mine. And I doubt Harry is ever going to trust me again, after this."

"You should have stunned me."

"What?"

"Should have stunned me and explained later."

Remus stared at him blankly. Only Sirius's mind worked like this.

"I suppose he ran off to Snape."

"I suppose so," Remus agreed with a sinking feeling. Severus was going to blame him for all of this, and rightly so.

"He really is Snape's."

Remus opened his mouth, before realizing it hadn't been a question.

"His eyes, I think. His face is still like James, but his eyes are Snape's. Only green."

"Maybe," Remus said, reluctantly. "If you're determined to see it."

"I suppose you think I should ignore it?"

Remus considered. Finally he shook his head. "But he doesn't know, Sirius, and if you tell him, or do anything else to hurt him, I'll be the one in Azkaban, because I'm going to kill you."

He wasn't sure his words had any effect, because Sirius's clouded grey eyes only looked at him, or, he thought, maybe through him, without any emotion behind them, and after a few silent moments Sirius turned away with a soft huff.

"Let's go back," Remus said. He hated that his voice now had a rather defeated tone. "Before anyone else sees you."

Without a word, Sirius walked away from him, heading for the door at the end of the corridor, which was left wide open.

Remus inhaled deeply, his chest aching. He was so exhausted that he almost swayed on his feet.

Harry was never going to look at him the same way again. Sirius was an ass... Azkaban couldn't change everything, Remus supposed.

And Severus was going to kill both of them.


End file.
